memoirs

[I.]

I still remember waking up at five in the morning, to the light peaking through the curtains and bathing my sheets with those rays, fighting to become something more than dim. I feel the teeth, biting the bone, nudging me to be alive; awakening my senses. The sharp edge of the kitchen knife, watching it fall from the table as my mother cut vegetables; a scream, a hand, being tugged away. The concerned faces, the "Are you okay?" as I screamed. But they didn't know that I was screaming just to scream. Just to let it out. I wasn't hurt, the blade had missed me. But still I screamed.

[II.]

We would awake, falling out of beds and climbing down from top bunks. Scrambling for the first egg in the morning, for the first piece of toast. We would laugh, pour too much syrup on our messy pancakes and then share with each other when we got scolded for wasting. Ann, they used to taunt me. One syllable. Not even a real name. It's like the prefix to Anastasia or Analiese. "Ann without the 'e'." What was I? But a breathing entity. A moving memoribillia through my parent's memory box. I was a smile, a slammed door, a stomp up the stairs when I thought some injustice had been done to me.

The memories are all shady. Some are slanted, moments of fighting for the bathroom, crawling under kitchen tables and pretending to be monsters. Some are perfect, clear cut, like glass against your fingertip, right before the blood oozes out. Burning my hand. Pressing it up against the woodstove and seeing it bubble. Screaming, feeling the heat rising from my palms. All I wanted was my bottle. But I couldn't reach it. I couldn't. Instead I got a bowl of ice water and my mother's arms around me, soothing me, telling me it was allright. I was allright.

[III.]

When my grandfather died. The phone call; and the tears that crashed around the table, creating whirlpools on the floor and tripping over our feet like a toddler finding it's toes. I was sick that week, vomiting up everything that touched the inside of my stomach. The wake, touching his cheek and feeling it so cold, like ice. His face, without a smile, just a look of contentment. His eyes, closed. And I wanted to cry and tug them open, just to see if he still was warm. But I couldn't. Instead I sat in the parlor next to a cousin and we cried; drops of sorrow and something we couldn't yet understand.

I remember the never ending car ride, the backseat and seeing that black car infront of us. Taking him away. Taking away a piece of us. Standing like a stone, freezing but not shaking, just standing still. Unmovable, even at the sight of death. The ground moved and trembled, but I stood straight. Solid. And they stepped foward and threw themselves into the dirt along with their flowers. I waited. Moved steps up and placed my soul on the petals. Dropped it onto the wood and watched it fall off the top; sliding, retching, a forgotten heart. We turned and walked away. Standing on top, while he was underneath. And I didn't want to leave him there. I didn't want to go. Slid into the car, my coat opening and falling off my shoulders. It was cold, the winter air biting. It felt good to be open. It felt good to be winter.